“It’s a load off my mind. I ought
to have done it before. In fact, I never ought
to have made the map at all.”

Mr. Chalk stared at him in speechless dismay.

“Try that,” said the captain, handing
Mr. Stobell his glass.

Mr. Stobell took it from mere force of habit, and
sat holding it in his hand as though he had forgotten
what to do with it.

“I did it yesterday morning,” said the
captain, noticing their consternation. “I
had just lit my pipe after breakfast, and I suppose
the match put me in mind of it. I took out the
map and set light to it at Cape Silvio. The
flame ran half-way round the coast and then popped
through the middle of the paper and converted Mount
Lonesome into a volcano.”

He gave a boisterous laugh and, raising his glass,
nodded to Mr. Stobell. Mr. Stobell, who was just
about to drink, lowered his glass again and frowned.

“I don’t see anything to laugh at,”
he said, deliberately.

“He can’t have been listening,”
said Mr. Tredgold, in a low voice, to Miss Drewitt.

He bade them good-night, and then pausing at the door
stood and surveyed them; even Mr. Tasker, who was
gliding in unobtrusively with a jug of water, shared
in his regards.

“When I think of the orphans and widows,”
he said, bitterly, “I——­”

He opened the door suddenly and, closing it behind
him, breathed the rest to Dialstone Lane. An
aged woman sitting in a doorway said, “Hush!”

CHAPTER VI

Miss Drewitt sat for some time in her room after the
visitors had departed, eyeing with some disfavour
the genuine antiques which she owed to the enterprise,
not to say officiousness, of Edward Tredgold.
That they were in excellent taste was undeniable,
but there was a flavour of age and a suspicion of
decay about them which did not make for cheerfulness.

She rose at last, and taking off her watch went through
the nightly task of wondering where she had put the
key after using it last. It was not until she
had twice made a fruitless tour of the room with the
candle that she remembered that she had left it on
the mantelpiece downstairs.

The captain was still below, and after a moment’s
hesitation she opened her door and went softly down
the steep winding stairs.

The door at the foot stood open, and revealed the
captain standing by the table. There was an
air of perplexity and anxiety about him such as she
had never seen before, and as she waited he crossed
to the bureau, which stood open, and searched feverishly
among the papers which littered it. Apparently
dissatisfied with the result, he moved it out bodily
and looked behind and beneath it. Coming to
an erect position again he suddenly became aware of
the presence of his niece.